COVID COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[bhobba]

So some people want schools to reopen because kids are "minimally affected" by coronavirus.

Here in Aus we have come up with a compromise position. Schools remain open so critical health care workers can still go to work - it is estimated at least 1/3 of health care workers would not be able to work if they were closed. But we are having a student free week next week so schools can gear up to deliver classes online. Some schools do it already:
https://www.acc.edu.au/marsdenpark/online/index.html

Then it will be the parents choice if to send them or not.

I said before virtually all commentators thought we would be in stage 4 lockdown by now, but we are still at late stage 2 or start of stage 3 because it is thought the increase we are seeing now is the backlog of people returning to Australia. TV footage showed, unfortunately, its still 'chaos' at airports - but reducing. Which is good because that chaos included almost total disregard for social distancing etc.

Thanks
Bill

 

[bhobba]

CSIRO in Aus latest information:
https://www.acc.edu.au/marsdenpark/online/index.html

Thanks
Bill

 

[peanut]

Yes. USA overtook China's lead in infection numbers. NY alone comprises half of the total. Looks like every major Western country will overtake China.

 

[peanut]

Here in Aus we have come up with a compromise position. Schools remain open so critical health care workers can still go to work - it is estimated at least 1/3 of health care workers would not be able to work if they were closed. But we are having a student free week next week so schools can gear up to deliver classes online. Some schools do it already:
https://www.acc.edu.au/marsdenpark/online/index.html

Then it will be the parents choice if to send them or not.

I said before virtually all commentators thought we would be in stage 4 lockdown by now, but we are still at late stage 2 or start of stage 3 because it is thought the increase we are seeing now is the backlog of people returning to Australia. TV footage showed, unfortunately, its still 'chaos' at airports - but reducing. Which is good because that chaos included almost total disregard for social distancing etc.

Thanks
Bill

Unfortunately, in the third world countries, where everyone is crammed into a tight space, some people seriously think the kids won't bring the virus home, or if they get it from their home, bring it to school? And who brings a lot of kids to school? Adults! Plus the teachers. And you know what? Grandma and grandpa live with these kids! If they contract the virus it may kill them. And I think the reason why testing of kids isn't done much: (two words) nasopharyngeal swab. Try sticking that baby down your 7-year old's nose. No. Schools should stay closed. .

 

[mfb]

Iceland tested 3% of their whole population (about 10,000 tests) and found that about half of the 218 positive cases don't show symptoms. This looks similar to South Korea.
The article doesn't say if they watched these patients for some time, or if this was at the time they tested positive, however.

Italy found more cases in the most recent update, largely driven by an increase in Lombardy. They are now reaching the total case numbers China reports.

 

[chemisttree]

How does a camera looking at a highway, where people are in their cars and not able to infect anyone else, have any relevance to whether or not NYC is in lockdown?

Because people get into and out of their cars. Infected people drive around and then get out of their car. Then they transmit at distant locations. Infected people drive into the city and get out of their cars and spread their infection. Are you really asking about how cars work?
If those drivers would self quarantine in their cars for 14 days it wouldn’t be a problem. I see lots of personal cars and few trucks. No checkpoints at all. There is traffic even at midnight across at the Lincoln Tunnel.
https://webcams.nyctmc.org/google_popup.php?cid=319

George Washington bridge facing west into Jersey. Really busy, even at 12:30am!

https://webcams.nyctmc.org/google_popup.php?cid=840

 

[PeterDonis]

Are you really asking about how cars work?

There's no need for attitude. This situation is tough enough for everyone without gratuitous snark.

If those drivers would self quarantine in their cars for 14 days it wouldn’t be a problem.

Plenty of essential workers have to drive to and from work, every day, even during lockdown, and many of them work all hours. In a city with the population of NYC there will be a lot of them. That's why you can't draw any reliable inferences just from cars on the highway. You need to look, as I said, at places like Times Square, where on a normal day (or night, for that matter), there would be lots of people crowding around. A few days ago I saw a camera view of Times Square in midafternoon and it was deserted. That tells me there are indeed a lot of people in NYC who are practicing social distancing.

 

[Rive]

Iceland ... half of the 218 positive cases don't show symptoms. This looks similar to South Korea.

Also, like Vo Euganeo

Awful high ratio. Of course, it is good that the mortality is actually 'just' around 1%, but with that many asymptomatic it will be a nightmare to stop this. Requires much more severe actions.

 

[chemisttree]

There's no need for attitude. This situation is tough enough for everyone without gratuitous snark.

Oh, my mistake. So you really think it’s OK for this level of travel as long as they are essential workers. You think no inferences are to be made seeing people in cars freely driving around the city along routes people use to get into and out of the city?

Plenty of essential workers have to drive to and from work, every day, even during lockdown, and many of them work all hours. In a city with the population of NYC there will be a lot of them. That's why you can't draw any reliable inferences just from cars on the highway. You need to look, as I said, at places like Times Square, where on a normal day (or night, for that matter), there would be lots of people crowding around. A few days ago I saw a camera view of Times Square in midafternoon and it was deserted. That tells me there are indeed a lot of people in NYC who are practicing social distancing.

No, they don’t have to. They’re allowed to. “Reliable inferences” will be drawn in 10 days as this disaster unfolds in both NYC and Jersey.
Before this is over, the Mayor will close the bridges and tunnels into and out of the city except for trucks bringing in supplies and those “essential” workers will be staying in the city in the now mostly empty hotels. That’s what a real lockdown is going to look like. What they are doing now is a joke.

 

[PeterDonis]

So you really think it’s OK for this level of travel as long as they are essential workers.

I don't know the specific circumstances that apply to all the cars shown in those webcams, so I can't possibly say. And neither can you.

Before this is over, the Mayor will close the bridges and tunnels into and out of the city except for trucks bringing in supplies and those “essential” workers will be staying in the city in the now mostly empty hotels.

Ok, you've made your prediction. We'll see.

 

[hmmm27]

Here (Toronto, Canada : pop.4M), I just drove to the other side of the city for a delivery, and back again, between 4:30 and 6:00pm ; something I wouldn't try normally given a choice, but there wasn't "rush hour" traffic.

 

[bhobba]

Unfortunately, in the third world countries, where everyone is crammed into a tight space, some people seriously think the kids won't bring the virus home, or if they get it from their home, bring it to school? And who brings a lot of kids to school? Adults! Plus the teachers. And you know what? Grandma and grandpa live with these kids! If they contract the virus it may kill them. And I think the reason why testing of kids isn't done much: (two words) nasopharyngeal swab. Try sticking that baby down your 7-year old's nose. No. Schools should stay closed. .

Its the same in Aus (except of course not as crammed) - but if they close schools necessary occupations will be impacted. If open - then the children will act as spreaders. The evidence so far is they are not as bad spreaders as say they are for the flu and with increased new 15 minute return time on testing (using a simple blood prick) the compromise in my post was thought the best balance. Like I said we all thought we would be in stage 4 lockdown by now - but still hovering stage 2 to 3.

Thanks
Bill

 

[chemisttree]

Ok, you've made your prediction. We'll see.

I’ll slightly amend my prediction. It won’t be the Mayor. It must be the Governor. The Mayor doesn’t have the authority. It might also come from the Jersey side.

 

[peanut]

INCREDIBLE. A humble sea worm from Brittany may bring hope to the sick who require respiratory assistance.
Initially tested for organ transplant, the hemoglobin of this worm may come to the aid of the sick who require respiratory assistance, says the report.

.../...

Translation of part of the report:

In a few days, doctors could start testing a hemoglobin extracted from the arenicola, a sea worm found on Breton beaches (photo). "The hemoglobin in this worm is capable of transporting 40 times more oxygen from the lungs to body tissues than human hemoglobin. In addition, it is a universal oxygen carrier compatible with all blood groups," explains Franck Zal, former researcher in marine biology at CNRS and founder of Hémarima, the biotech that developed this molecule.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/co...WHr6-UXT8kQwQEqtrbsHg9dDTl8r5viBxfi9yG1cXc3QQ

 

[gleem]

I surely hope that the world is taking this pandemic seriously and forming plans to take care of the next one.

We got a message from SARS and MERS but ignored the warning. We could have been farther along on a vaccine or treatment if research on SARS was allowed to continue. That research lost financial support and was discontinued see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/scientists-were-close-to-a-sars-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago.html.

 

[phinds]

I surely hope that the world is taking this pandemic seriously and forming plans to take care of the next one.

The only lesson that mankind learns from history is that mankind doesn't learn anything from history.

 

[peanut]

The only lesson that mankind learns from history is that mankind doesn't learn anything from history.

I agree. I just want to support your statement that mankind indeed doesn't learn from history.

Edited by mentor

 

[atyy]

Iceland tested 3% of their whole population (about 10,000 tests) and found that about half of the 218 positive cases don't show symptoms. This looks similar to South Korea.

https://nordiclifescience.org/covid-19-first-results-of-the-voluntary-screening-in-iceland/

In an earlier report. they got 0.86% positive.

If they are screening everyone, 0.86% seems absurdly high for Iceland, since that would be a higher percentage than the 0.6% confirmed cases for Wuhan. I would suspect that these are false positives as @Vanadium 50 pointed out in post #994.

If they are only testing symptomatics, 0.86% is high but at least reasonable. In Guangdong, when testing symptomatics (flu-like symptoms that may or may not be Covid-19), postive cases were about 1/200 to 1/1000.

My understanding is that South Korea does not screen asymptomatics. If they do test asymptomatics, they I suspect they only test the high risk subset, eg. those who are closed contacts of confirmed cases.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The only lesson that mankind learns from history is that mankind doesn't learn anything from history.

Not all of humankind failed to learn from the past:

In the aftermath of a 2015 outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that killed 38 people and cratered the economy, South Korea took a hard look at what had gone wrong. Among the findings: A lack of tests had prompted people ill with the disease to traipse from hospital to hospital in search of confirmation that they had MERS, a Coronavirus far more virulent than the one that causes COVID-19. Nearly half the people who got the disease were exposed at hospitals.

Korean officials enacted a key reform, allowing the government to give near-instantaneous approval to testing systems in an emergency. Within weeks of the current outbreak in Wuhan, China, four Korean companies had manufactured tests from a World Health Organization recipe and, as a result, the country quickly had a system that could assess 10,000 people a day.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind

Ironically, South Korea was able to dismantle burdensome regulations to unleash the power of the private sector, while the American response involved relying on a centralized federal agency (the CDC) to distribute testing while preventing individual states and private companies from developing their own tests.

Various Asian nations (such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong), despite their proximity to China, have been much more successful at containing the COVID-19 outbreak than other nations, and notably many of these were nations that had been hit hard by the SARS outbreak in 2003.

So, some nations were able to learn lessons from past outbreaks, in contrast to other nations that failed to learn or actively sought to dismantle and ignore lessons from past outbreaks.

 

[anorlunda]

Various Asian nations (such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong), despite their proximity to China, have been much more successful at containing the COVID-19 outbreak than other nations, and notably many of these were nations that had been hit hard by the SARS outbreak in 2003.

That sound rational. I think you are correct.

 

[Astronuc]

At this point, we can confirm that the virus has not been contained in the US, and never was.
See world map animation of virus spreading (by cases) - https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/nat...avirus-cases-spread-across-the-world/2303276/

New York reports 44,635 confirmed cases with 519 deaths (25,398 positive cases in NY City alone). Locally, there have been two deaths from COVID-19, where the individuals were not tested before they were hospitalized (by then they were severely ill). In New York City, doctors and nurses are catching the virus and dying, and in too many cases, they are lacking the proper personal protective equipment. One hospital is putting multiple patients on ventilators/respirators, because they do not have enough equipment.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/cor...ospital-reports-13-deaths-in-one-day/2344831/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-hospitals.html
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loc...-19-than-to-homicides-in-all-of-2019/2346703/

Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) — United States, February 12–March 16, 2020
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm

 

[Astronuc]

March 20, 2020 - Young people appear to be at greater risk of serious illness from the Coronavirus than initially realized in the U.S. (A week ago) https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-03-20/coronavirus-and-its-emerging-risk-to-the-young

preliminary data out this week shows that among a sample of 508 patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 in the U.S., fully 38% were between 20 and 54 years old.

For US:
NBC New York reports 83836 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 1209 deaths and 681 recovered.
Coronavirus Dashboard reports: 85,498 cases including 1,388 deaths, 252 recovered and 1381 serious cases. I do not know the criterion for serious, but I imagine it probably means ventilators and pneumonia.
CD Update (1645): 93105 confirmed cases - 1546 deaths, 2297 recovered, 1674 serious.
Covidtracking.com reports: 82,286 cases including 1199 deaths, 10465 hospitalized.

New Jersey (1700 EDT) reports: 8825 confirmed cases including 108 deaths, and 16547 negative tests.

 

[OmCheeto]

A visualization of US causes of death
COVID-19 overtook "influenza and pneumonia" on Tuesday, with the current trend it will overtake accidents during the weekend. These numbers are averages, of course. Stay at home orders should reduce the number of accidents at the moment.

That was really fascinating.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn't plot the rest of the curve, which is still pretty much a straight line, so I did it.

It appears that sometime today, it's going from the #5, to the #2 cause of death, here in the US.
In 5 days, it will be the #1 cause of death.
5 days after that, it will kill more people per day than everything else combined.

This disease never ceases to surprise me.

 

[nsaspook]

Some might ask why we are in lockdowns. This is why.

 

[Astronuc]

Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98163_98173---,00.html
Map and cumulative statistics

As of March 27, 2020, 1500 EDT.
3657 confirmed/positive cases
92 deaths
10524 negative tests

 

[chemisttree]

I surely hope that the world is taking this pandemic seriously and forming plans to take care of the next one.

We got a message from SARS and MERS but ignored the warning. We could have been farther along on a vaccine or treatment if research on SARS was allowed to continue. That research lost financial support and was discontinued see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/scientists-were-close-to-a-sars-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago.html.

The researcher states:

““We could have had this ready to go and been testing the vaccine’s efficacy at the start of this new outbreak in China,” said Hotez, who believes the vaccine could provide cross-protection against the new coronavirus, which causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19. “There is a problem with the ecosystem in vaccine development, and we’ve got to fix this.””

So, without testing it for efficacy in humans, this researcher now makes the bold claim that it would provide cross-protection! Interesting if true.

 

[kyphysics]

Question about immunity and two COVID-19 strains:

We've discussed immunity before on a broad level. -----> For those who contract the virus and survive, their bodies develop immunity from the virus' harms in the future.

With two strains - L and S - does anyone know if immunity is specific to just one strain? Thanks!

 

[dlgoff]

Apologies if this has been addressed in this thread. What I understand is that the COVID-19 virus has a fairly short lifetime when in an open environment? I also understand this virus may be seasonal? If those understands are correct, my question is, how does this virus stay potentially infectious after the "off-season"?

 

[Astronuc]

““We could have had this ready to go and been testing the vaccine’s efficacy at the start of this new outbreak in China,” said Hotez, who believes the vaccine could provide cross-protection against the new coronavirus, which causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19. “There is a problem with the ecosystem in vaccine development, and we’ve got to fix this.””

Since they hadn't seen this virus before December, or possibly before November, I can't image that they would have a vaccine 'ready' now. It seems to take months to develop a vaccine. He could be referring to a general vaccine for coronaviruses, and I think that is the intent going forward - to develop a vaccine that protects against the group of coronviruses and particularly nCov.

BBC, March 17, 2020 - Coronavirus: US volunteers test first vaccine
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51906604

Scientists around the world are fast-tracking research.

And this first human trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, sidesteps a check that would normally be conducted - making sure the vaccine can trigger an immune response in animals.

But the biotechnology company behind the work, Moderna Therapeutics, says the vaccine has been made using a tried and tested process.

So someone has already started on a vaccine for 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2.

 

[Astronuc]

Apologies if this has been addressed in this thread. What I understand is that the COVID-19 virus has a fairly short lifetime when in an open environment? I also understand this virus may be seasonal? If those understands are correct, my question is, how does this virus stay potentially infectious after the "off-season"?

I don't think that is known at this point. Considering that the virus (and COVID-19) is affecting populations in 191 or 195 countries, it doesn't seem to mind warm or cold weather! It's effectively spring in the US, and fall/autumn in the southern hemisphere, and we've been watching 2019-nCoV spreading during the winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern hemisphere. And remember, part of the population can host the virus without symptoms to minor symptoms.

The situation with contagious diseases like the flu is that many people are vaccinated, which helps mitigate the spread. Currently, we do not have a proven vaccine for 2019-nCoV, although one or more have been developed and are being tested.

Here's what some models are showing: http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Coronavirus COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)
https://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopki.../540747/all/Coronavirus_COVID_19__SARS_CoV_2_

• Transmission
  • By respiratory droplets and by fomite. Virus found in respiratory secretions and saliva.
  • Stool shedding also described, but uncertain what role, if any, that plays.
• Incubation period
  • Mean of 6.4 days, range 2-12. For people quarantined, 14d observation recommended to exclude infection, though 24d asymptomatic time from exposure described.
  • Viral shedding occurs following recovery, but unclear what role this plays in transmission.
  • Children and intrafamilial spread appear to be a growing means of transmission.

Fomite - http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Infection_Control/Routes/fomite.php
https://aem.asm.org/content/73/6/1687